Another long week. I wake up from a long dream not sure where the world ends and I begin. Politics is draining, not the discussion of it but the experience. I need to sit by myself to remember how to think rather than just react.

Erich Wolfgang Korngold
I turned on the stereo when I fell out of bed and got my bearings listening to early Schoenberg: simple, almost vulgar narrative. No wonder he became an ultramodernist. If not for that he would have ended up doing film scores for Errol Flynn. Listening to Verklarte Nacht I keep imagining Olivia de Havilland staring out a window.
From Childhood I associate Chopin with Charlie Chaplin, and not the other way around.

This weekend is going to be pretty busy as well, most of it taken up with a long going away party for my friend Colin de Land, who died a few months ago. A small party tonight; tomorrow at the great hall at Cooper Union; and a concert tomorrow night at CB's. I think Debby Harry is playing, and Lou Reed may show up. I'm a minor player in this scene, on the outer reaches of the inner circle, but need to be there. And it should be fun. It's not going to clear my head however.

From The Times:

"But in his parliamentary appearance, Mr. Hu went beyond economics by painting China as an all-around global player that was reaching out for broad diplomatic and cultural relations, including an increase in the already tens of thousands of Chinese students attending Australian universities.
In contrast, Mr. Bush in his address on Thursday, dwelled on a narrow agenda of the campaign against terrorism, and his gratitude to Australia for sending troops to Iraq.
The biggest difference was in style, with an almost complete role reversal of what might be expected. The Chinese leader was gregarious; the American president, aloof.
Mr. Bush left after 21 hours in Australia, stuck to this sleepy capital, and was whisked around in motorcades on routes swept clear of ordinary people. He declined to hold a news conference, and was criticized in the usually pro-American press here for offering little beyond a pledge to complete the outline of a free trade agreement with Australia soon.
Mr. Hu is lingering for three days. He took the traditional outing for visiting dignitaries — a cruise on Sydney's splendid harbor. He met with Australian business executives at a working lunch, and, in an unusual move for a Chinese leader, held a news conference, albeit a fairly scripted affair.
'Bush came, Hu conquered,' headlined the Financial Review, the conservative, business newspaper"

If I were much of a nationalist...
But I gave that up for Lent years ago.